Aloha

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Every couple of months, I tell myself that I'm going to start a blog. I get excited about it, I think about post ideas... and that's about as far as I get. That's probably been going on for a couple years, but now I finally did it. I have a blog! (Hopefully it sticks around for a while.)

If you're reading this soon after it's posted, it's probably not a very nice looking blog -- yet! Give me some time. Between work, the gym, and snuggling my dogs, I'll work on the layout and design of this thing eventually.

While it's probably safe to assume that a lot of my posts will involve me thinking out loud about various things, I'll try to keep things interesting. And what better way to start than with Hawaii?

The last two weeks were spent on the beautiful island of O'ahu with my family. Essentially the same forecast every day: pretty warm, maybe hot, rain for five minutes, and then sun the rest of the day. It was quite the bummer to come home to floods and thunderstorms in Chicago.

Being the big "Lost" fans that we are, one of our first days was spent taking a tour of different filming locations for the show. It's incredible just how many different scenes and places were filmed on a single island. Los Angeles, Seoul, Oxford University, Sydney, a snowy alley... all O'ahu! Some locations were even used more than once as different places in the show.

Another favorite of mine was visiting Waimea Falls, a waterfall that poured into a small area where you could swim, before leading into the river. (It also just so happened to be another "Lost" location.) We were able to pull ourselves along the rocks to the right and bring ourselves close enough to the waterfall that we could barely see through all the spraying water. I promise that it was harder to do than it looks. Definitely a workout.

A lot of our days involved going out and doing something in the afternoon, and then relaxing on the beach or at the pool at night; a perfect balance, if you ask me. But I won't bore you with too many details.

We spent one morning visiting Pearl Harbor. Even though I'm not a big history buff, I enjoyed it. It's sad, of course, but still moving. Another afternoon was spent hiking up an extinct volcano, Diamondhead, giving us an amazing view of Honolulu. The whole thing took us about an hour and a half. Worth it.

One thing I don't have pictures of (yet) that I wish I did was parasailing. It was my first time doing it, and I would DEFINITELY do it again. It's surprisingly peaceful when you're up in the air.